John Mousinho confirms 'huge' Portsmouth injury blow ahead of Bristol City clash at Fratton Park

Portsmouth manager John Mousinho has confirmed his side have suffered a "huge blow" ahead of their clash with Bristol City at Fratton Park, with Kusini Yengi ruled out for the next nine to 10 weeks through injury.

Liam Manning's Robins make the trip to the south coast on Saturday afternoon and will be looking to register back-to-back wins for the first time this season having thrashed Plymouth Argyle 4-0 last weekend.

Pompey have had a difficult start to life in the Championship, having won promotion as League One champions last season, winning two of their opening 16 games to currently sit bottom of the table, four points adrift of safety.

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Mousinho's side are unbeaten in their last two games and impressed against Preston North End last time out at Fratton Park, but they will have to do without Yengi for the foreseeable future after the attacker picked up a new injury whilst he was away with Australia during the international break.

"We’ve not had the best of the news with the scan with Kusini Yengi," Mousinho told The Portsmouth News. "He’s done damage to the ligament of his PCL and he’s going to be out for somewhere between nine and 10 weeks.

"It’s a huge blow, he’s picked it up playing while away with Australia, which is a real shame. It’s an injury he picked up during the game. He played the full game and scored a couple of goals.

"We hoped it wouldn’t be too serious, so that one is a real disappointment and frustration, especially considering he was in our side for the three previous games prior to the international break. He was coming into a bit of form, and building a sense of momentum as well, so that’s going to be a bit of a miss.

"Whenever you get a knee injury it’s difficult to assess, but we were hoping it’d be less than that. But there’s always a chance with ligament injuries that it’s more than that as well. So it’s kind of in the middle, it’s not ideal, but it’s not long-term so we’ll just have to get on with it."

Manning's side have their own injury issues to contend with, with Chris Hogg confirming that none of Mark Sykes, Kal Naismith, George Tanner or Ross McCrorie would be ready to return to the fold at Fratton Park despite stepping up their recovery in recent weeks.

However, the Reds will be boosted by the return of Marcus McGuane. The midfielder missed City's win over Argyle with a back spasm but is now back in training and "fully fit" ahead of Saturday afternoon's clash.

Similarly, Portsmouth could be set to benefit from the return of Zak Swanson, with Mousinho confirming he had returned to training this week ahead of the visit of Bristol City, but Saturday may come too soon for Jacob Farrell to make his first appearance since September.

"Zak’s trained this week and he’s back in full training," explained the Pompey boss. "He’s looking fine and has no issues there, so he’s available for selection this weekend.

"Jacob has been out on the grass but is still not back in full training. He’s getting closer and hopefully back with us at some point next week."

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